City hospital to open new floor today

MORE beds will be available to the patients when the City Government-run J.R. Borja General Hospital’s (JRBGH) 3rd floor in Barangay Carmen, Cagayan de Oro City, will be opened to the public starting today, Thursday.

The opening of the new floor will mean additional beds and facilities to the Cagayanon patients, said Dr. Ramon Nery, JRBGH executive officer.

With this, Nery said the city hospital’s old wards at the second floor will be decongested, allowing for more patients to avail themselves of its services.

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Nery said the use of the hospital’s third floor was on Mayor Oscar Moreno’s mind when he assumed as the city’s chief executive last year.

He said that after a series of executive meetings called by Moreno, it was decided to utilize the third floor to accommodate more patients coming in.

“We can see that this is what Mayor Moreno wanted, to serve the people of Cagayan de Oro [by] giving them the best. This is the first taste of giving them the best,” Nery said.

Dr. Ramon Moreno, the hospital overseer, said that with the opening of the third floor, JRBGH will now be the alternative to the Northern Mindanao Medical Center (NMMC).

JRBGH is a level one hospital while NMMC is a level three medical facility.

“Angayan na ipasigarbo (We can now be proud of it),” Dr. Moreno said, referring to the opening of the hospital’s new floor.

With the expansion, Dr. Moreno said JRBGH is now on its way to achieving the level two status and they are looking to attain that next year.

A level one hospital has the basic facilities, while the level two will have additional facilities like an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), hemodialysis and other services.

Dr. Moreno said the NMMC is ready to donate a computer tomography (CT) scan equipment to the JRBGH.

But, Dr. Moreno noted, JRBGH already has a level three laboratory.

The hospital’s new floor houses the various wards (isolation, dengue, pediatrics, miscellaneous, respiratory, gastro-intestinal, cardio) including a ward for senior citizens and city government employees, medical wards for male and female, basic health facilities, two private rooms, doctors’ quarters, a nurse station, and multi-function hall.

The wards, Nery added, will be installed with air-conditioning units for the convenience of the patients.

Nery said the JRBGH private rooms will have the cheapest rates among the hospitals in the city.

At present, the JRBGH can accommodate more than a hundred patients in a given time, and bed-sharing is allowed since, Dr. Moreno said, “We don’t turn people away.”

“If people put their trust in us, they will come here,” Moreno added.

While the JRBGH has opened another floor for its patients, a construction of the hospital’s new wing is also ongoing.

The JRBMCH was established in 1963 where Cagayanons preferred to seek treatment aside from the then provincial hospital, now NMMC, because it was managed well and the various medical cases were attended to until neglect plagued it during the past administrations that resulted to its deteriorating state.

“We are not only trying to bring back to life the city hospital, but we are trying to better its capability in terms of the delivery of health services,” said Dr. Moreno.

Dr. Evelyn C. Perez JRBMCH, chief of hospital, said that the transformation of the hospital has lifted the morale of the medical staff and employees.

“Their (doctors, nurses and employees) sense of pride that they belong to the hospital is slowly coming back now that they see the enormous difference between its past and present condition,” Perez said.

At present, JRBMCH, with an allowed 100-bed, is exceeding its capacity to 130 to 140 patients owing to an improved hospital care.

Perez said the city hospital now has 30 physicians and 127 nurses and other medical staff to attend, round the clock, to admitted patients.

“This time, we will be able to deliver the needed health services to our people especially the indigent residents and in the process alleviate poverty in the city,” Mayor Moreno said.

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